In this issue

Ismail Kadare, winner of the 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, headlines the Winter 2021 issue + a special section on contemporary Hebrew literature gathers eleven writers from Israel and beyond. Fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, dozens of timely book reviews, and booklists make the latest issue of WLT, like every issue, your passport to great reading.

Marie's Proof of Love

People believe, Marie thinks, even when there’s no proof. You believe because you imagine. But is imagination enough to live by?

10+ mins

Our Revenge Will Be the Laughter of Our Children

What is it about the revolutionary that draws our fascinated attention? Whether one calls it the North of Ireland or Northern Ireland, the Troubles continue to haunt the land and those who lived through them.

10+ mins

Apocalyptic Scenarios and Inner Worlds

A Conversation with Gloria Susana Esquivel

10+ mins

Awl

“Awl” is from a series titled “Words I Did Not Understand.” Through memory—“the first screen of nostalgia”—and language, a writer pieces together her story of home.

10+ mins

Dead Storms and Literature's New Horizon: The 2020 Neustadt Prize Lecture

During the Neustadt Prize ceremony on October 21, 2020, David Bellos read the English language version of Kadare’s prize lecture to a worldwide Zoom audience.

10+ mins

Surviving and Subverting the Totalitarian State: A Tribute to Ismail Kadareby Kapka Kassabova

As part of the ceremony honoring Kadare as the 2020 laureate—with participants logging in from dozens of countries around the world— Kadare’s nominating juror, Kapka Kassabova, offered a video tribute from her home in Scotland.

6 mins

Ismail Kadare: Winner of the 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, World Literature Today presented the 2020 Neustadt Festival 100 percent online. In the lead-up to the festival, U.S. Ambassador Yuri Kim officially presented the award to Kadare at a ceremony in Tirana in late August, attended by members of Kadare’s family; Elva Margariti, the Albanian minister of culture; and Besiana Kadare, Albania’s ambassador to the United Nations.

3 mins

Chicken Soup: The Story of a Jewish Family

Chickens, from Bessarabia to New York City, provide a generational through-line in these four vignettes.

10 mins

How to Adopt a Cat

Hoping battles knowing in this three-act seduction (spoiler alert: there’s a cat in the story).

6 mins

Turtles

In a field near the Gaza Strip, a missile strike, visions, and onlookers searching for an explanation.

6 mins

Read all stories from World Literature Today

World Literature Today Magazine Description:

Your passport to great reading. Each issue of World Literature Today delivers book reviews, fiction, poetry, interviews, and essays by the best new writers from across the globe. Now in its 90th year of continuous publication, World Literature Today has won dozens of awards including most recently the Apex Award for Excellence and Annual Gold Ink Award.